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Minor Deity
Picture of Cindysphinx
posted
Can someone please address my biggest concern about Universal Basic Income?

If you give everyone $12k a year, how is that helping anyone survive? Wouldn’t housing costs rise by, oh, I don’t know, $12k?

Is Universal Basic Income somehow immune from economic forces like supply and demand?
 
Posts: 19753 | Location: A cluttered house in Metro D.C. | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
Picture of Axtremus
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Cindysphinx:

If you give everyone $12k a year, how is that helping anyone survive? Wouldn’t housing costs rise by, oh, I don’t know, $12k?
No.

Different people need/want different things. An additional $1k for a millionaire goes into an investment account, a charity, or a piece of luxury good. An additional $1k for a low net worth, low income person goes into food, clothing, shelter, transportation, healthcare, education. Different poor people have different needs and different priorities, so will direct that additional $1k towards different things. The funding for the $1k/head still has to come from taxes. So it will come from somewhere in the economy. Redistributing $1k to every head reduces income inequality and give those in the low income strata a better chance at affording basic necessities. Some in the middle class may even use the $1k to reduce the hours they work (e.g., to have more time to take care of children or old people in the family, or even just to play piano or tennis; that’s $1k translated into time rather than rent or goods).

Think one billionaire with 999 homeless hobos. Redistribute $1k per head to everyone, and the hobos can potentially go from homeless to having a room. The billionaire may be the landlord who set rents such that housing for the hobos amount to all the $1k per head they all get, and some middle class renters will have to pay higher rent following the new rate set by the billionaire landlord, but the hobos still go from homeless to having a room.


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www.PianoRecital.org -- my piano recordings -- China Tune album

 
Posts: 12675 | Registered: 01 December 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Shut up and play your guitar!
Minor Deity
Picture of markj
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Everyone regardless of income gets this $12k?

There are no strings attached like how they can spend it? Can they just spend it on hookers and blow?
 
Posts: 13626 | Location: Wisconsin | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
Picture of Mikhailoh
posted Hide Post
It would cost as much to administer how they spent it as the subsidy itself. Not to mention that, as Cindy said, market prices would rise to take advantage of all that money entering the economy.

Better we should focus on trying to make a better life real to youngsters growing up than to show them they can exist on a minimal level by doing nothing.


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"A mob is a place where people go to get away from their conscience" Atticus Finch

 
Posts: 13509 | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
Picture of Axtremus
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Mikhailoh:

Better we should focus on trying to make a better life real to youngsters growing up than to show them they can exist on a minimal level by doing nothing.
"Universal Basic Income" is one idea to make a better life real, not just for youngsters, but for everyone (hence the word "universal").


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www.PianoRecital.org -- my piano recordings -- China Tune album

 
Posts: 12675 | Registered: 01 December 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
Picture of Mikhailoh
posted Hide Post
It would be like a raise at work - its only satisfying for one check, then it just becomes the status quo and folks will focus on what they don't have. Such is human nature.

To think that will make people happy is folly.


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"A mob is a place where people go to get away from their conscience" Atticus Finch

 
Posts: 13509 | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Pinta & the Santa Maria
Has Achieved Nirvana
Picture of Nina
posted Hide Post
I listened to an interview where a research program gave a chunk of money (I don't remember the amount, but $12K might not be too far off) to homeless and very low income individuals, with no strings attached to how they spent it. The only catch was that the recipients couldn't be addicts or mentally ill. The vast majority spent the money wisely, using it for security deposits for apartments, rent, fixing cars to get to work, etc.

So there's that. I will see if I can dig it up.
 
Posts: 35360 | Location: West: North and South! | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
Picture of Mikhailoh
posted Hide Post
I have no problem with helping out folks who are down on their luck temporarily, or even permanently if the situation is beyond their control. But a forever subsidy? We would be better off to establish vocational programs that address child care and the like while training folks for jobs that are in demand.

Teach to fish rather than give a fish and all that.


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"A mob is a place where people go to get away from their conscience" Atticus Finch

 
Posts: 13509 | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
"I've got morons on my team."

Mitt Romney
Minor Deity
Picture of Piano*Dad
posted Hide Post
A conservative (free market) take on UBI and new evidence:

From the Adam Smith Institute
 
Posts: 12474 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
"I've got morons on my team."

Mitt Romney
Minor Deity
Picture of Piano*Dad
posted Hide Post
If you're really interested in this issue, i.e. you want to go beyond everyone's often-biased hunches and ideological predilections, here is a very thorough review of the idea and the evidence in developing countries. Many of the ideas, however, would carry over to more developed settings.

Universal Basic Income
 
Posts: 12474 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Has Achieved Nirvana
Picture of wtg
posted Hide Post
Thanks for the reading material, P*D. Looks interesting.


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training



 
Posts: 37651 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Minor Deity
Picture of Mikhailoh
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
If you're really interested in this issue, i.e. you want to go beyond everyone's often-biased hunches and ideological predilections, here is a very thorough review of the idea and the evidence in developing countries. Many of the ideas, however, would carry over to more developed settings.

Universal Basic Income
If you are really interested in sharing information on the subject you might want to skip the pompous and arrogant evaluations and assumptions regarding my everyone's viewpoint.


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"A mob is a place where people go to get away from their conscience" Atticus Finch

 
Posts: 13509 | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Has Achieved Nirvana
Picture of wtg
posted Hide Post
"to go beyond everyone's often-biased hunches and ideological predilections"

I don't know the original intent, but I didn't read that as singling any particular person out but rather pointing out that there's more than meets the eye.


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We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love… and then we return home. - Australian Aboriginal proverb

Bazootiehead-in-training



 
Posts: 37651 | Location: Somewhere in the middle | Registered: 19 January 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Shut up and play your guitar!
Minor Deity
Picture of markj
posted Hide Post
Is it taxable? Razzer
 
Posts: 13626 | Location: Wisconsin | Registered: 20 April 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
"I've got morons on my team."

Mitt Romney
Minor Deity
Picture of Piano*Dad
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by wtg:
"to go beyond everyone's often-biased hunches and ideological predilections"

I don't know the original intent, but I didn't read that as singling any particular person out but rather pointing out that there's more than meets the eye.


Yes, but "everyone" is free to interpret as they wish. Big Grin
 
Posts: 12474 | Location: Williamsburg, VA | Registered: 19 July 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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